 Good morning, all I'll try and get this done very quickly because I know we all really want to go and get coffee and morning Morning see but I remember on my demo. I put like demo on it Full disclosure. I forgot about that until like a couple of days ago. So to keep true of that I don't know if anyone's really noticed but we've got these lovely people over here doing sign language So I would like to know what is a sign language for good morning? so Sorry for the delay So it's this good and morning morning So good morning, and is this for clapping? Yep So let's try this for today instead of clapping. Let's just do this yep, and If I go too fast, or if I just go massively opt-off it just do that as well It'll make it a lot easier But let's get actually to the talk so There we go Hi, if you've not heard I'm Tremaine Light drink coffee Pretty much. I can't stop my day without a coffee if you see me without coffee I'm normally very alone and very angry also love being outdoors That's why I love we put a photo of me on a rock Once again, that's just me. It's like really went to a park. It's not actually hiking. I can just took a bit too much effort Also, if you want to follow me T pen 9 on any social platform That's my username So today, I thought I should have skipped it for I did but today I'm going to talk about five things I wish I knew back when I started to actually do development It was a quite a while ago. So There's a lot of stuff that wish I knew the main one is imposter syndrome It is real guys like it's something that I didn't notice I had until I started attending word press meet-ups and actually talking people in the community where Like I look at what I was doing and I never actually really knew That I thought that I didn't know what I was doing for those that don't know what imposter syndrome is Here's the nice definition of it the psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and Has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud That's it in a nutshell. I Feel it's something that most of us have had In our early stages even maybe even today that we have all thought that we were an imposter and scare that somebody was going to say Hey, you're not a real developer or hey, you're doing this and you're not really looking at Yeah, but it's something I feel it we should as a community just embrace Where even if we're a page builder if we're doing a Projects we're all Developers in a way. We shouldn't be looking at it as One's a developer. Oh, this person's using this tech. That's not what I'll do is this person's using this tech I'm not going to use that tech that person's not a developer where I think Google did actually had a campaign for it saying like Am I a real developer or something if anyone remembers what the hashtag was shouted outs as I just forgot about it even I put it on my notes but Imposter syndrome is real number two Don't do cheap projects. They're not worth it They're going to cause you a lot more pain than they're actually worth doing Especially when you're doing sites for under a thousand It's going to cause a lot more problems than it is actually good. I remember back when I started I was in high school So $300 seemed like a lot to me back then but these days that looking back at it destroyed me as I Was doing work for like 20 30 days and getting paid only a couple hundred dollars for that work Where now I'm looking at it, and I'm getting paid for the same quality of work in the same level of time About two three thousand dollars more an hour contracts need them Even for small day projects have a contract have a piece of paper that actually says What time you're going to deliver it what you're going to deliver with and everything that you need to deliver to that client Even if it's just a simple piece of paper saying I will deliver this website with this function with this plug-in Deliver at this time, and I'll post it on this platform Having it all documented and signed has a really good open relationship with your client So then you're not handing over the project and it's going to find coming back to you saying hey I thought I was going to get this Well having a contract means that you can go back and say Well, no, we've agreed on this terms conditions. We agreed on this spec. We agreed upon this plug-in last well second last one is a Work-life balance. It is very important to actually have the ability to not just work and work and work and Work and then sleep and next morning you work work work and sleep Which? Let's be honest here. Who has that former lifestyle? We've got a couple I Think some people are too scared to put their hands up It is saying that I've looked back at only very recently and worked out that I had really no life Other than work and other small commitments Where it's like that I now look at the same that I want to have a lot more better achievement at and a lot more Oomph in doing last one is I Want to have a lot of time for questions, which I? don't know if I'll have but We have to have the big like inspirational things so dream big Don't limit yourself to what you can do right now Limit yourself to what you can do next no matter what you do each project have go into it increasing What you can do by 10% so if you are Building a website. What is the next step today? Take you to the next level. What is the small? Maybe like single extra 30 minutes. Can you add to that project that can improve you as a developer and then do it Even if it doesn't work it doesn't actually go into the final product You're gonna eventually just keep building yourself up to become the next level of developer or next Achievement or will size hit the mic Sorry audio tech guys, but I just had to have that slide that's and I want to have some more times for questions so that I can actually have a better engagement of Any questions or any feelings that anyone has in the crowd anything they want to talk about even just personal statements That's open for anything You talked about work life balance. Yep. What do you think is a good work life balance? Well, I like to limit myself about eight hours a day of work and Then I like to somewhat just switch off So after the eight hours, even if it's I work in the day of relaxing the day working the night I like to have the ability so that even though I'm a freelancer. I Still have the ability to go home and fully switch off Where I know a lot of times back on just to be just freelancer. I would go to work Go home go to work go home and we went on my home I've run my laptops we're planning emails or finishing that projects or studying for the next projects Where then you've just pretty much like you turn off for a little bit, but you're only turning off by like 30 or so percent So where I see is always having it is that you are actually working even though you're a freelancer So you get that like office Like nine to five feeling if that makes sense Any other questions, I think it's great that you Underscore needing a contract. Yep. Can you dig into that a little further? How do you actually manage that process of getting them to sign and what do you have in the contract? Because I know that parts pretty difficult and sometimes they actually come back with their own contract or want to strike pieces of yours out Yeah, so pretty much it varies on what your project is But I like to have a very Uniform concept where my contracts start with a brief Description of what the company is and what we actually do and then pretty much I didn't just define what the project is like what platform What's the website or what's the app and pretty much to find that and then actually go in and scope out the project So I might have For example, if it's a website, I might have these are the pages. I'm going to do these with what's on me on those pages I'm going to be supplying the content the images You have to supply this or this and then pretty much I then say it's going to take me X amount of hours It's this much per hour And then pretty much I have it like as a blanket statement I get two reviews and then after that you've got to pay For an alley rate and then I pretty much have a rule of thumb that you pretty much sign it when you do deposit So that pretty much as soon as they receive it most of the time they sign it where occasionally I've got couple that sign it a couple of days after but I've been pretty good most my clients are happy to sign it and A lot of routine ones just sign it by default. I think there was a quick. Yep That's a second Firstly, thank you for your presentation. It was really really helpful with the tips there going back to the imposter syndrome topic When you're going to do that next big thing say something like a speaking presentation or a really big project bigger than anything You've done before how do you practically deal with the imposter syndrome that can creep up in those circumstances? Yeah, so that's a very good question It's made that I really do not know about until like a couple months ago, but pretty much what I look at it now is If I feel I can like if I can feel I can do it I do it But if I know I can't do it I can't do it which I explain a lot more about pretty much the sums up one better say but Pretty much what I look fully at it is Like you've got those things where like if you're invoices like if you're sending a proposal to Apple That is saying that's a lot lower chance to it But if you like going to a cafe meaning for client a lot of that stuff I feel is just you just have to go into it knowing that you are the best that you can be Like go into it knowing that even though if you don't think it just go into it thinking that you are The next level like you are the top developer and Just embrace it like don't think about it and I just do it in a way like the pose that Contract pose that project just go in and do it and if it goes down It goes down, which is if you ever want to learn how to face rejection Do door-to-door sales? it helps a lot like we laugh, but Who really answers the door actually size that's hanging up with that like I did it for two weeks That's how I learned how to face rejection But yeah, so pretty much just go for it and aim to be your best and if they reject you move on to the next one We can take one more question. How about something at the very back? No, okay. I was one at the very very back So I'm just wanting you guys to get some real late exercise here I feel like we've only been going up to like the fourth or fifth row, sir You quoted a figure of up a few thousand dollars as As the sort of the bottom limit as to the sort of projects you do how did you come up with that figure? Well pretty much I worked it out as what would I want to wake up? So if I knew I was working on something how much would I want to wake up to do? So if it's a project that's three hundred dollars, I know that's gonna take me 15 minutes So I'm not really gonna go wake up and go yeah, I'm in for this I want to go and make this blog article today or I want to add a photo to this web page Where if I do it at a thousand dollars a client's gonna come out to me and say Okay. Yep. I'm gonna add this this this to it just so that it makes it worth its while a bit more as Also, so that thousand dollars is more of a limit on my alley So you can't just hire me for 15 minutes. You got to hire me for an hour. If that answers your question Yeah Well, those are some great and useful tips Yeah, and I can definitely second the the whole get in a contract sign for absolutely everything you do So that's that's a key takeaway. And so thank you very much to me and please give them a warm. Thank you